Derek Jarman biopic kicks off new show

The late avant-garde film-maker Derek Jarman is to be the subject of a new exhibition curated by his friend and fellow artist Isaac Julien at the Serpentine Gallery, London, next February, 14 years after Jarman's death.

Julien, who was nominated for the Turner prize in 2001 for his experimental films The Long Road to Mazatlan and Vagabondia, has long admitted the strong influence of Jarman on his work. His forthcoming film about Jarman, which he has been working on with the film producer and author Colin MacCabe, will be the starting point for the Serpentine show, and will also screen later next year on More4. It features footage of Jarman talking about his life, shot two years before he died in 1994.

Alongside the film will be a series of Jarman's paintings, specially selected by Julien and shown together in the UK for the first time in seven years.

According to Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Serpentine's co-director of exhibitions, the show will highlight various aspects of Jarman's work, including its ground-breaking presentation. "Artists now frequently use moving images in gallery installations, but Jarman was pioneering in venturing into galleries and museums to show his films," Obrist says.

For Julia Peyton-Jones, director of the Serpentine, the exhibition "is a very timely opportunity to review Jarman's incredible contribution to art and culture. That Julien knew Derek Jarman himself, that his own work has a strong resonance with Jarman's moving images, and that [Julien] is both presenting his own new film and acting as curator of the show, all makes for a fascinating exhibition."